We’re going to look at each of these in depth in this article, but first — in order to understand how to build trust with your clients — let’s examine why cold calls cause stress in the first place.

Why People Hate Sales Calls

Bottom line, uncertainty creates stress.

People say they love surprises, but what they want most is certainty. Our brain is a prediction machine, hardwired to predict what should come next.

Take walking, for example.

When you take a step, you assume your foot will hit the ground safely. You don’t even think about it.

You’ve taken enough steps in your life that your brain has stored these memories to create a prediction of what will happen next — your foot safely hitting the ground and you taking your next step and so on. But if someone runs into you while you’re walking, it creates a moment of uncertainty. The person running into you could be a threat to your physical safety, or maybe it was just an accident and you can move on with your day.

This creates a moment of stress.

When there’s a moment of uncertainty, our brain generates a threat-response, or at least an alert-response, in our body.

The same thing happens when you receive a call from someone you don’t know.

But now, let’s say the person calling you is really a coworker from an unknown number. Right when you pick up the phone, you have the same response as you would to a cold call — stress.

But as soon as they introduce themselves, the alarm bells stop ringing. The person is familiar. The uncertainty disappears, and a conversation can take place.

I could have responded with, “Thanks for checking it out! How’s prospecting going for you these days? Any challenges?”

But many of these conversations stop in the LinkedIn inbox. The prospect doesn’t message back, or what I send them doesn’t resonate for whatever reason.

I say skip that step altogether.

Check out the prospect’s LinkedIn profile and company page. Make sure they fit your ideal client profile. Use a tool like Apollo.io or LeadIQ to grab their direct dial, pick up the phone, and shoot them a call.

Getting an executive’s attention requires more than referencing a few news articles. Simply summarizing a few points from their LinkedIn profile doesn’t usually cut it, either.

If you’re prospecting into mid-market and enterprise companies, trying to connect with C-level can be a common problem.

What you can do instead is take a bottom-up approach.

Let’s say your ideal persona is a VP of Sales. I’ve had success getting in touch with VPs by starting the conversation at the rep or manager level. Especially if the rep or manager engaged with my content on LinkedIn.

In these sales calls, my goal isn’t to get a meeting on their calendar. My goal is simply to see if they’re willing to help.

I’m looking for two things:

Insights into any challenges that are related to my product/service

If they know the person I should be talking to

When I do this, the conversation often goes something like this:

REP: Hey [first name], this is [your name] with [your company]…

Prospect: Hmm…

REP: You sent over a message to me on LinkedIn about [reference their message].

Prospect: Right!

REP: I was hoping you might be able to help me out?

Prospect: Sure, what’s going on?

REP: I’m calling to [share an idea, see if you need help, to learn more about…etc.]. Do you know about any challenges or initiatives you guys have in this area?

Prospect: Actually, [shares insight]…

REP: Interesting…[dig in more]. Do you know who would be best to chat with about this at your company?

Prospect: That would be my boss, [their name].

REP: Great. Would you be comfortable doing a quick intro?

Now you have a warm intro up the food chain to the person’s boss. Plus, you likely learned a few things about the inner workings at the account that you’d never find online.

Action:

If you’re having a hard time getting a hold of the C-suite, start one level lower than you think you should when you’re prospecting. Use that conversation to bring insider information to the C-level or VP.

Bringing It All Together

Your number-one goal is to be less of a surprise to the prospect when they get a sales call from you.

Look for ways to interact with them on LinkedIn. And instead of messaging prospects back and forth, pick up the phone and call them.

Focus on prospects engaging with your emails. Create triggers in your sales engagement platform so you can be notified immediately when prospects open your emails.

And don’t be afraid to start one level lower than you think you should when prospecting. It’s a great way to gather inside information to bring to VP and C-level conversations.

What would you add? Do you have a sales call tip that beats anything else you’ve ever done?